There’s a fascinating movement going on in American indie cinema. Sean Baker and the Safdies are creating what I like to call “Gutter Poetry:” cinema out of the American middle and lower class. It’s resulted in some truly exceptional films these last few years.
It is with a sense of freedom, freshness and energy that, in Baker’s mise-en-scene, from the camera to the non-professional actors, his films continue to map contemporary America, marginalized communities, and in such illuminatingly refreshing fashion.
Baker’s latest is “Anora,” an ambitious, bold, glossy and hysterically funny scewball comedy tackling upper and lower class differences. The film is also a character study of Ani (Mikey Madison), a Manhattan stripper who falls for rich Russian playboy, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). He’s just 21. She’s 23. Their vastly different backgrounds should not gel, but romance strikes.
Ani works at a shady strip club outside the city. She speaks a touch of Russian, thanks to her upbringing with grandma, and her boss asks her to wait on Ivan Zakharov, the son of a Russian oligarch who requests a stripper who speaks his language. They hit it off.
A lap dance quickly turns into dates, as, in the span of just a few days, Ani and Ivan end up partying at his mansion, going to Vegas and, ultimately, getting married. She gets a four carat ring from him and, more importantly, no prenup. Word eventually gets back to Russia, where’s Ivan’s parents reside, and that’s when this story turns chaotically nutso.
Outraged by the shame of their son marrying a “hooker,” Ivan’s parents quickly hire a trio of Armenian thugs to annul the marriage, by any means necessary. Ivan flees the scene. Ani stays. Baker has never pulled off a set piece as hysterical as the extended one that occurs when thugs Toros and Igor (Yura Borisov) invade the mansion, but Ani, a feisty girl, puts on one epic fight, and their attempts to restrain her turn into absolute slapstick gold filled with concussions, broken noses and injured legs.
Can we call this one a nightmare romcom? It takes big swings, going back and forth in tone, and Madison somehow keeps it all together in a performance that is an absolute firecracker of physical and emotional bravura.
I mentioned the tonal shifts that occur in “Anora,” and they can sometimes be jarring, at times slowing down the film — especially in the anticlimactic homestretch which still ends up resulting in a surprisingly touching climax. Baker tries to cram too much into his 138-minute runtime, but there’s never a dull moment.
Madison as Ani is astounding. The work she does here, manifesting a wide array of emotional switches, will be too hard to forget — it’s spirited, buoyant, acerbic and ultimately poignant work on her part. Baker has always had an instinct for spotting talent, and here, he hits the jackpot with Madison.
Her counterpart, Eydelshteyn, is a man-child, filled with immense privilege, getting whatever he wants in life, and unfamiliar with responsibility, and yet, he still comes off, at first, as a loveable putz who can’t seem to put a single sentence of English together. Ani doesn’t seem to mind his obsessive Play Station playing and bong hits.
Shot in beautiful 35mm widescreen, “Anora” is a chaotically energetic film that’s filled with life. It’s also an absolutely stress-inducing experience, akin to the Safdies’ “Uncut Gems,” but also mixes other genres into its DNA — romcom, thriller, screwball — to create a hybrid that’s unlike any seen before. [A-]
Aslan is described as "he," with heterochromic eyes and red-striped face, a look Gerwig says was inspired by David Bowie. So this isn't a gender-swap. Aslan is still a male lion. He's just voiced by a 77-year-old woman.